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Now would you open your Bible with me please to Ephesians, the second chapter.

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As we look at a couple of verses right toward the end of the chapter.

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This is the Word of God and it says, in Christ Jesus the whole building being fitted together

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is growing into a holy temple in the Lord in whom you also are being built together

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into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

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The community of the saints is a temple, a dwelling place for deity.

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The particular word used for temple by the apostle in this text is used in other places

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of the inner sanctuary of the temple that is the Holy of Holies.

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We know that today God no longer dwells in a building made of human hands and by human

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design and as a matter of fact God was never limited to such in the first place.

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But rather today He dwells within a living temple, the New Testament temple.

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That word is used in three contexts in the New Testament.

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First of all the believer's body itself is called a temple, 1 Corinthians 6 19.

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We are therefore to care for our bodies as being the dwelling place of God.

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Secondly is used of the local assembly of the saints, a local church in 1 Corinthians

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3 verses 16 and 17 is called the temple of God.

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And it is used here in the text today in the sense of the universal church, the mystical

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body of Christ that is composed of all New Testament believers in all of the centuries

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of this age.

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The performance of worship was of the highest value in ancient Israel.

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In fact there were certain people who were set apart by the nation to lead them in worship.

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These were the Levites.

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They because of that unique role were considered to be the most privileged among all of the

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tribes.

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What is worship considered to be today in the New Testament temple?

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By our mainstream culture it is considered to be irrelevant.

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And sadly it is also by many genuine Christians because nearly anything will keep them from

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being in worship.

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Our culture as a whole and the church itself is paying a high price for this demeaning

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of worship that is taking place in our day.

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Man was created to know God and to worship Him, to declare His worthiness, to adore and

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to pay honor to Him.

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But man fell from his exalted place in the garden.

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He fell into rebellion, hostility, and warfare against God, His Creator.

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Nonetheless, God in His great mercy and grace has gone about redeeming a remnant of fallen

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humanity to restore them to that privileged position for which we were all created, to

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be the worshipers of God.

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That remnant today is what we call the church of Jesus Christ, the new community.

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We are a new community intended by God to be a community of worshipers.

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We are a temple, the dwelling place of God, the place for worship.

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In this book of Ephesians, it seems to me that we have something of an example of the

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worship that was given to God in the first century.

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It's found in one of the doxologies in the book, that being back in chapter 1 beginning

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in verse 3, where the Apostle Paul almost, as it were, records for us a hymn of praise

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to God.

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He tells us that God is to be worshiped in this text that begins, blessed be the God

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and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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Paul gives us here an example of worship, and in doing so, he provides several basic

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insights for us regarding worship in the New Testament community, the temple of God in

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this age.

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In the first place, we have the insight that worship is to be directed to the triune God.

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You will notice he says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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And so we have two persons of the Trinity mentioned there in the very first clause of

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verse 3.

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Again in verse 5, he mentions Jesus Christ, in verse 6, calling Him His beloved, and on

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it goes.

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God the Father and God the Son are clearly mentioned, as is God the Holy Spirit in verse

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13.

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We were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise.

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Worship is to be directed to the triune God.

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We today are as much in danger as ever of falling into false worship.

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There are some people who come to church to worship a system of theology, and as long

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as that careful system of theology is adhered to, they're happy, because to them that is

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what they come to worship, a particular view of theology.

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There are those who come to worship church traditions.

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This is the way we've always done it.

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This is the way we should forever do it.

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And so traditions really are the focus of their worship.

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And should those traditions be crossed, they are cross.

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They are angry people.

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Because it's not God that they worship, but the traditions of the church.

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There are some who worship the means of worship rather than the God that is the end of worship.

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There are some who focus so much on the style of worship that they can't worship God.

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I think our church is probably less polarized over the styles of worship than many, even

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most churches.

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But we have people who are on the extremes of both the contemporary and the traditional.

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We have some on the extreme of the contemporary side who say that unless you lift your hands

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and feel good, you aren't really worshiping.

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And in emphasizing the feelings like that and the lifting of the hands, which there's

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nothing wrong with, and I encourage in fact, but in emphasizing the means, it exposes the

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fact that we're here to worship a style and not God.

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On the other hand, there are those on the extreme of the traditional end of the spectrum

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who if they don't hear classical music and if the worship isn't somber and formal, they're

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offended.

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We need to understand that we are here to worship God, not a style of worship.

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I fear that styles in some cases have become idolatrous to people.

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We are as much in danger today of false worship as the church has ever been.

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What the apostle tells us in this hymn, this classic doxology of praise, is that our worship

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is to be directed to God, whatever style it may be.

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And he tells us that as we worship God, we are to worship Him as Father, Son, and Holy

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Spirit.

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That, of course, is one of the fundamental doctrines of our faith.

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It is a test of orthodoxy as to whether one believes in the triunity of God.

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There are many who deny that today.

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It is certain that the Trinity is beyond human understanding, beyond logical explanation,

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but it is true.

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And although the word itself is not used in the Bible, it is used to describe the truth

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that is self-evident in the Word of God, that God is three in one.

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Charles Hodge defines the Trinity in these words, the Trinity is composed of three united

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persons without separate existence, so completely united as to form one God.

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The divine nature subsists in three distinctions, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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And to each of them, we may rightly direct our worship, our praise.

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I was glad this morning we included a hymn that did exactly that, the Father, the Son,

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the Holy Spirit, and then to thee, great one in three, we sang.

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Worship is to be directed to the triune God.

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The second insight that I see is that worship embraces the attributes and works of God.

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All of these are to the praise of His glory.

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Now, I've not taken time to read this paragraph, but I hope it's familiar to most of us anyway.

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You will notice that in these verses of Ephesians 1, we have a number of attributes of God specifically

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mentioned or suggested.

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For example, verse 4, He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.

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That tells us that God is not created, that before the world or the universe was, He existed.

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God is eternal, one of His essential attributes.

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In verses 5 and 7, we see His grace and His kindness.

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In verses 8 and 9, His wisdom as God.

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In verses 5, 9, and 11 again, we see God's will mentioned and the fact that He purposes

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everything according to His sovereignty.

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God is sovereign.

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Now, there may be other attributes as well that you can glean as you study through this

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wonderful hymn of praise.

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We are to worship God for His attributes and for His works.

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Notice again that in verse 3, it says, He has blessed us.

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That's a work of God.

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Graciously giving to us, bestowing upon us, He says later.

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God has chosen us.

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God has predestined us.

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God has freely bestowed grace.

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God has redeemed.

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He has forgiven.

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He has revealed.

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He has purposed.

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He has sealed.

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All of these are the works of God.

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They abound in this hymn.

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And so, our worship is to embrace both the attributes of who God is and the works that

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this mighty God has done on our behalf.

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Worship is declaring God's worth.

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It is repeating and speaking God's praise.

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The third insight that I want to point out is that worship results in transformed worshipers.

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In verse 12, for example, it says, all of this is to the end that we who were the first

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to hope in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.

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In the text that we read at the beginning, it says that we are a people growing into

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a holy temple.

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We are growing in holiness.

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We have a new soundboard back there this morning, and these gifted men who volunteer to help

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us with it are struggling to keep it all together.

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We're grateful for the wonderful advantage of the soundboard, but one of them said, whom

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I'll not name, but he's sitting back there on the right.

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He said this morning, please be patient.

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God is not finished with me yet.

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Well, hey, isn't that true with all of us?

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God isn't finished with us.

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We are growing, and worship results in transformed worshipers.

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You see, worship is not entertainment.

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It is interaction.

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It's me coming to meet with God and with His people.

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Worship is communing with God.

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I cannot do that without a change in my attitudes.

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Saints should always come to worship God, expecting to participate in worship.

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When we do, we will take away from the service a commensurate benefit to our own lives.

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We come to give, and as we give to God, worship we receive accordingly.

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Occasionally, I hear sentences like these, well, I don't get anything out of worship.

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I'm not being spiritually fed in worship.

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This sentence has used to bother me, but I have come to realize that in fact they are

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embarrassing statements to those who make them, because they are statements of self-disclosure.

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Statements like that are made by those like the emperor who didn't know he was naked.

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For when we come to worship and give to God the glory that is due to Him, we will get

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something out of the service.

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We will be spiritually fed.

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And if we're not getting anything and not being spiritually fed, it's because we didn't

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give anything to God.

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There are a number of observations that I make based upon these brief thoughts this

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morning about the community of worship.

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Let me share some of them with you with what is suggested here about worship, wide latitude

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is still given to the influence of culture.

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God does not box in worship here.

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He gives us some of the basic principles about worship, three of which we've talked about,

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but He doesn't box worship into a certain culture.

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Now certainly when we come to worship God, we must put away the pagan and demonic aspects

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of our culture.

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They do not belong in worship.

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But human culture is not in itself sinful.

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It is not inherently sinful.

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Indeed, as I thought about this, I realized that in the book of Revelation when it describes

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our worship in eternity to come, it says that we will still be a multitude of people with

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many languages and tribal backgrounds and colors.

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We are not going to be resurrected all in the flavor of vanilla.

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When we get to heaven there is going to be something of our human culture left over that

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we are going to bring there with us in our worship.

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Last Sunday we brought another culture into our worship center.

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It was interesting to read a couple of reactions.

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In fact, I chuckled if I didn't even laugh out loud Monday morning as I read them.

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On the one hand, and I want to give them credit, they signed their statements.

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One person said, pray for our music ministry.

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Well I think that basically says what that person is.

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Pray for our music ministry.

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On the other hand, the person said, the best music we've had here in five years.

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That explains it.

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There it is.

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It's illustrated for you.

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Last Sunday we had a mission Sunday.

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And since most of us don't take the step into another culture, we brought another culture

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here to lead us in worship.

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It was a marvelous experience.

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And it's wrong to condemn worship just because it's in another culture.

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That doesn't mean that we don't have our own preferences because we do.

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But the people who are on the opposite ends of the spectrum need to learn a basic biblical

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principle.

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Accept one another.

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Accept one another.

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When we do that, says Paul in Romans 14 and 15, it is evidence of spiritual maturity.

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And I commend the 95% that have evidenced that kind of maturity in our congregation.

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Another observation I make is that worship is not confined to a building.

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But meeting together for corporate worship is a high priority in the New Testament.

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It is true we no longer worship God in a temple building like the Jews did in the same sense

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that they did.

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But let's not take that to the extreme that therefore meeting together as a congregation

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isn't important.

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It is important.

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In Hebrews chapter 10, the writer tells us that there were even those in the first century

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who were sinning because they failed to be with the assembly of God's people in worship.

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What does it take to keep us from worship?

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That tells us where it is in our priorities.

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No, we don't worship in a building, but the gathering of the church for worship is a very

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high priority in the New Testament.

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You tell that to the deer hunters who have gone this morning, will you?

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Number three, the place of worship may be simple or elaborate.

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The place where we gather to worship as the temple of God may be simple or elaborate.

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I don't think there are any rules about that in the New Testament.

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There are a number of factors which would influence the building, the culture where

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it's located.

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I remember worshiping in a house that was made of dirt and bamboo in Indonesia that

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wouldn't be very comfortable here in Minnesota.

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Culture has a lot to do with the place that we worship.

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So does affluence.

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And so does the mission of the church, the reason for its existence.

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The place of worship may be simple or elaborate, but it does, whatever it's like, it does make

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a statement about the congregation's concept of God.

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It does make a statement about the congregation's concept of God.

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We have gathered this morning in what some term grace church, great land.

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I remember when it was being built that some of the construction people thought it was

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a warehouse.

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This room was not built to be a worship center.

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It was built to be a multipurpose room until we could phase into a permanent worship center.

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I hope we don't stop midstream on that plan that we've had from the beginning.

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We've been able to add to it over the years to make it a place that's more conducive for

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worship, and I'm glad for all of that.

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The place that we worship says something about our concept of God.

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When God commanded the people of Israel to build a place for Him, it was a place that

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was elaborate in its beauty.

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I don't think that we can cross that over directly to the church today and say that a

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church must be elaborate, but it ought to be a place that in its beauty, in its cultural

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setting consistent with the mission of the church, it enhances our worship of God.

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And it certainly ought to be a place that's clean.

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It ought to be a place that we can go without embarrassment.

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When I go downstairs and see some of the carpet down there, frankly I'm a little embarrassed

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that our community was in to our church voting this last Tuesday and saw our carpet downstairs.

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I think that's a bit of an embarrassment to us as a church.

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I don't think that it truly reflects what we think of God.

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I hope it doesn't.

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But the point is the same, that the place of worship may be simple or it may be elaborate,

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but it does make a statement about what we think of God.

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Fourthly, worship is an active expression from the heart.

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Somebody has written a book entitled, Worship is a Verb.

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It is.

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Worship is not a thing.

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Worship is an activity.

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It's what we do when we get here.

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Worship is a verb and it must involve our bodies to some degree.

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I don't mind it at all when people are so moved in worship they want to lift their hands

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to God.

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I think that can be a beautiful expression to God.

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In fact, we sing choruses sometimes in which we say in them, we lift our hands.

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And we don't lift our hands, we're lying.

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We're not lifting our hands.

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If we sing we're lifting our hands, are we not to lift our hands to God?

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The other extreme, I've been in some services where you knew exactly when people were going

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to lift their hands.

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Because being a free church that would never claim to have liturgy, it nonetheless has

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its own informal liturgy.

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And when certain words are said or certain places in a song are reached immediately,

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all the hands go up.

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And somehow that lacks as well.

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Worship is an active expression.

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It ought to involve our bodies.

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I was thrilled when Paul told us to stand on that fourth verse of holy, holy, holy.

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Because if he hadn't I would have had to stand anyway, wouldn't you?

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I loved the way that that built and built and built until we stood to our feet to sing

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holy, holy, holy.

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Worship is an active expression of the heart.

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I cannot understand Christians who come to a service and just stand their glum and never

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sing to God.

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I can't understand that kind of Christianity.

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Worship is an active expression of the heart.

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Finally, the living temple is under construction.

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The living temple of God is today under construction and it is holy unto the Lord.

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Our lives make it so or less so.

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As we come today to the culmination of this service and coming to the Lord's table, we

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come for a life check.

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We recognize that these elements represent a sacrifice on our behalf and we look in and

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examine our hearts and then reflect to the Lord.

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Let's come to Him this morning with our hearts pure and determined that as we partake of

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these elements today, it will be yet another block laid, another nail driven into the temple

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that is holy unto the Lord.

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Bow with me please in prayer.

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And as I pray, I'm going to ask those serving to come and the ensemble as well.

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Let's pray.

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Father, we are to be a temple.

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So your word says, help us to understand all the ramifications of that and may we as a

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community of people be a worshiping community, bringing you the glory, declaring your worth

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as you are worthy.

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In Jesus' name, amen.

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All, God above.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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Yeah man.

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White shirt.

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All of the blood of Jesus.

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All the blood of Jesus.

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It washes white as snow.

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All the blood of Jesus.

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All the blood of Jesus.

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All the blood of Jesus.

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It washes white as snow.

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It washes white as snow.

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It washes white as snow.

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Jesus, save your Lamb of God above.

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Come and wash me in the fountain of your blood.

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Wash me in the fountain of your blood.

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Nothing else can save me but your love.

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Jesus, save your Lamb of God above.

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Come and wash me in the fountain of your blood.

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Let's pray.

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Lord Jesus Christ, we recognize your presence in this place.

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You are here by the Spirit.

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And as we partake of this bread, we do so communing with you from our hearts.

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And we receive this bread with gratitude for your sacrifice.

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Amen.

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Jesus said, this is my body broken for you.

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Eat it in remembrance of me.

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And our Lord, for this cup we also offer to you our thanks.

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And receive it in communion with yourself remembering the blood that was shed for our redemption.

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Amen.

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Jesus said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.

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Drink it in remembrance of me.

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Lord, we do remember.

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And as priests unto God, purchased by this blood, we offer to you our worship.

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We declare your worthiness.

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And we say, bless you, Lord.

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Sing together with me.

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Sing, Alleluia to the Lord.

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Sing, Alleluia to the Lord.

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Sing, Alleluia to the Lord.

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Sing, Alleluia to the Lord.

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Amen.

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As you're collecting the cups, let me tell you that if you wish this morning to participate in the benevolent offering

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that we call the Elders Fund, there is an offering box at the back door.

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We want to encourage you to go out that way and to leave your gift in that box.

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And it will be used for that purpose for those who are needy.

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Thank you very much for your part in that and for being here today as we have worshiped our Lord Jesus Christ.

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And as we go, we don't leave him here.

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He's not staying.

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He's going with us.

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Let's walk in that joy.

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God bless you. We're dismissed.